Telstra clear needs to keep Kiwi jobs Kiwi

TelstraClear’s plans to cut up to 170 call centre jobs in Christchurch and Paraparaumu to outsource them to the Philippines is evidence of a worrying trend in the communications industry, Labour’s Communications and IT spokesperson Clare Curran said today.

“According to the EPMU, the union which represents telecommunications workers, up to 170 New Zealanders could be joining the dole queue if the proposal as reported goes ahead and the Australian-owned TelstraClear moves its call centre operations to the Philippines,” Clare Curran said.

“I believe New Zealanders are sick of companies deciding to axe Kiwi jobs in favour of lower labour costs in other countries in order to improve their bottom line to share holders.

“The National Government continues to remain silent on these issues. That’s not good enough.

“This is part of a worrying trend of local companies off-shoring jobs that could be done by New Zealanders. Recently we’ve seen ANZ, Fisher and Paykel, Telecom and the Yellow Pages group all cut jobs in New Zealand to make use of cheaper labour overseas.

“TelstraClear claims the plans will save the company millions of dollars but the decision could further tarnish TelstraClear’s reputation for customer service.

“TelstraClear already has a reputation for having poor customer service response times. This past weekend, the New Zealand Herald surveyed ten Internet Service Providers, finding TelstraClear to be slowest at answering customer queries.

“The wait times cited in the report of up to 65 minutes is evidence of an understaffed and under-resourced call centre.

“It is difficult to see how moving its call centre thousands of kilometres away from NZ will improve TelstraClear’s reputation amongst New Zealanders.”

ENDS

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